5 Parsecs from Home - Turn 9: The Moon of Tarnicus

 Tarnicus - a giant ball of frozen methane, uninhabitable, lucrative. Tarnicus has a single, small moon dotted with various megacorp complexes set up in order to maximise access to the resources on the primary planet. The crew of The Pelican have landed here to lay low for a little while. While in port they heard about another crew who were trying to steal some sensitive information from Centcon Energies to sell to the highest bidder. They decided to try and get in before the other crew and make some quick cash.

The grav train stopped at the warehouse. It was not an official stop but a few credits into the driver's palm convinced him make an extra stop.

The scavenger crew approached the warehouse in two groups, cautious in case there were any security around. 

The four members of The Pelican crew who were not in medbay hopped off the train and took up positions. Lars was ready to cover the rest of them from behind while Brenko, Holmes and Mao would attempt to beat the others to the warehouse and get the files.

The scavengers must have been quite good at what they did, they were all armed with pretty high tech, long range weaponry, energy weapons included. They had some seriously military grade equipment. Long range pot shots were taken while Aralay Brenko attempted to hook around behind the warehouse.

After some back and forth Lars struck home. The leader of the scavenger crew fell to a well placed shot to the abdomen. 

Unfortunately one of the scavenger groups hooked around and opened up on Augustus Holmes who took a few hits and went down. He would be out of action trying to dress his wounds. 

Brenko opened up with her hand cannon, missing wildly, but the scav also missed. 

Seizing initiative Brenko charged at a scav and sliced through her. At the same time Lars took out the enemy sniper. 

Things were looking great...until they weren't. A scav opened up with his infantry laser. At close range it was devastating, Brenko's flak vest somehow managing to disrupt the worst of the energy. She was still going to be needing a stay in medbay though. Mao also took some shots, knocking him down and putting some serious damage on him. He would need emergency surgery but would pull through.

Alone and outgunned, about to be surrounded, Lars decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Parlaying with the other scavengers he was able to hotwire a van, load the rest of the team in and rush them back to The Pelican but not before picking up one of the lasers from a dead scavenger.

I had never lost a battle. It was a strange feeling. Then I realised I had been playing it wrong! I had not been adding the combat score to the attack rolls. This meant there was a lot of back and forth, ineffective shooting where people were unable to roll a hit. I also forgot that Mao had a luck point - meaning he shouldn't have been a casualty. 

Due to this I downgraded Mao's stay in medbay to just one turn. They would return to fight another day.

The rules also say you can't take weapons from dead enemies, but I happened to roll an infantry laser on the loot chart so made it fit into the narrative. Of all the rules I got wrong, this is not one of them.

Five Parsecs from Home: Turn 8 - A Quest ends...

So I hadn't played in just over two years... Reviewing my Google sheet I discovered I somehow had enough quest rumours to get a final quest mission...even though you are meant to move planet between each quest mission. From a narrative perspective it actually worked because it looked like the local governor making a last ditch attempt to off my crew. I ran with it and decided that I would revise the rules and carry on on a new planet as it makes sense from a narrative perspective to get out of dodge. 

A rabble quietly approached The Pelican, attempting to remain in the cover of some shipping containers.

The crew of The Pelican warily stocked up in preparation for a hasty departure from this rock. They had obviously outstayed their welcome and needed to get out of dodge. Lars had set up to cover as the rest of the crew shifted various containers into the cargo hold.

Seeing movement Aralay Brenko and Estelle Phillips moved into more covered positions. Phillips saw an opportunity to open fire and got off a few shotgun blasts taking out one of the shifty figures. Unknown to her he was one of the rabble rousers. The rest of them faltered right away, then decided to keep going.

One of the rabble swung to the left and opened fire with his rifle. Out of cover, moving cargo Oslan Baratski was hit, a dark patch spreading across her leg. Mao also took some fire and was lucky enough to be able to scamper to the relative safety of the shadows under The Pelican and the cargo crates.

Estelle Phillips also had to duck for cover under a hail of rifle rounds.

Seeing movement Lars opened up, his rattle gun tearing chunks out of a storage garage and also one of the attackers.

This death forced the attackers to take cover, retreat and regroup, they took some ineffective fire but nothing happened for a little bit.

Augustus Holmes managed to get a bead on another person taking a shot and putting a hole in him.

Then disaster stuck as a brave attacker ran up and sprayed wild fire at Estelle Phillips. She crumpled and fell under the fire! Meanwhile Lars and Mao were taking inaccurate fire.

Augustus Holmes and Mao exchanged fire with other figuresn, taking them out. This was helping keep this side safe and was forcing the rest of the attackers to advance around the containers...where Aralay Brenko was lying in wait.

Aralay stuck! Running out of cover she swung her blade at one of the attackers, his head flying away from his body.

Caught in the open the other attackers panicked, fell back a little then regrouped. Aralay managed to pin one of them.

She then charged in and in the desperate grapple both she and the attacker fell back from each other, tired, and worried.

Before she could recover a hail of bullets slammed into her sending her to the floor.  

Augustus Holmes charged around opening fire on the remaining attackers, knocking one to ground.

Holmes, Lars and Mao caught the remaining person in a pincer and while Mao took the fire Holmes closed in for the kill. Upon investigation one of the final people killed was the governor himself! He had been determined to witness the job being done and see it through. It did not go well for him unfortunately. They managed to find a purse on him with enough credits to probably look at upgrading some weaponry at some point. 

 And with that it was time to leave. Holmes, Lars and Mao carefully carried Brenko, Baratski and Phillips back to The Pelican and got them into the medbay. It turned out none of the wounds were going to leave any permanent damage. The only thing left to do was to hightail it out of there. 

Germans on the move!

 I finished a group of late war German transport vehicles! I wanted them to be able to mount FHQ units, infantry squads and other small units in vehicles if needed, thus I painted up a load of Sdkfz 251s, Opel Blitzes, Kübelwagons and some other vehicle that I ordered and I think counts as a "Heavy car" in Battlegroup language. 

One thing I decided was to not bother doing any sort of camo job on the Opel Blitzes, Kübelwagons and the "Heavy car". It just wasn't worth it. You can see from the picture that they all look totally fine. They will do and are very obviously German.

I tried to do some camo on the Sdkfz 251s but gave up. I am definitely unhappy with how the couple turned out - the stripes are just too thick for my liking, and the handful of stripes I liked I struggled to replicate - I think I just need very little paint on the brush...or a thinner brush? Hard to find one that thin though.

This Sdkfz 222 has a little camo. It is okay. Servicable. I think I would rather it have some camo than not. 

I am mostly pleased with how these all turned out though and am looking forward to getting them into action. 

Camo vs. generic nation colours in 6mm.

 This blog contains images I took from google searching. I don't own these images.

Reflecting on my choice to not give my WW2 German support vehicles any camoflauge I had the thought about how it looks a bit like the old game Sudden Strike 2, which was a game I sank a lot of hours into but gave up on when it got too hard.

Below you can see the Russian forces. They are all this bright green colour, so you can spot them in the green of the grass. There is no variation.

Below you can see the late war Comet fighting what must be a late war Tiger...that is grey. I remember finding it a little jarring seeing all German units as grey, infantry included, but it worked for the game's internal consistency. The British forces all had this vaguely desert colour as their journey started in Africa.

From the distance the player is playing, the generic colours really helped identify which unit belonged to which faction. I can live with that in 6mm - although do take issue with all German being grey. 

My USA, British and Soviet forces - the vehicles will all be a generic green, infantry will be painted as accurately as I can. Germans - early war grey, later war midstone with camo if I can make it look non awful.

Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. US 6mm

 Here are a few more vehicles, that I finished over the course of this week. If you paid any attention to my previous post then you will see my musings on paint jobs. I went with US Dark Green. The soft tops and tilts are British Uniform - a generic canvas sort of colour. 

I like the cartoony look of having blue windows at this scale. With the jeeps and trucks I worried about how they have no doors and are open sided, but due to molding needs they are filled in. How would I paint them then? I think it worked decently to be honest. 

These Chaffees are the new mold. They are pretty gorgeous. I had fun painting them and look forward to them dying quickly to some Panthers...

Painting up some 6mm WW2 British infantry and armour.

 After allowing myself to dilly-dally and not bother doing much, I finally have a platoon plus some support of British infantry. I also have some armour. I was basically unsure about what colour to paint the armour and exactly what to paint on the infantry because I felt like the soldiers would just blend in with their bases, which is kind of what happened. 

I found this link from A Bridge to War blog which gave some interesting tips on painting 6mm WW2 infantry and armour. It goes very much down the "it can all look the same when looking down at a table" route and does enough to make the figures look different while also being simple to paint. 

Infantry

The infantry were essentially primed in a light grey. This differs from that link, but it is all I have for now. I then used all Vallejo paints and painted them in the following order:

Flesh - Light flesh.

Uniform - British Uniform

Helmets - US Dark Green

Weapons - Beige Brown, then Black

Washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade

Gear - Russian Green (I only painted canteens and a pouch or two)

Light drybrush of Sand.

The original link just paints weapons black. It also primed with brown, which made the need for British Uniform paint layer unnecessary. 

I am pleased with how they turned out. I should have probably painted boots also, but couldn't be bothered. I would have painted them black if I had thought about it.

Armour

I convinced myself I needed Bronze Green to paint my armour, but ended up just painting them US Dark Green, washing with Citadel Nuln Oil, drybrush with Desert Yellow. They look fine to be honest. I have painted up some KV1s and a KV2 using Russian Green, which is noticeably lighter, but after washing with Nuln Oil I literally can't tell the difference between the two colours! 

The link above has inspired me to paint up some Waffen SS though. I had always thought they were too difficult to paint up in 6mm and was just never going to play them. 

Next up, some US logistical vehicles. Then some German trucks and half tracks - they are just waiting for some more colours and a flocking. 

Slow progress - WW2 Brits, US gaps filled, Wehrmacht gaps filled

 Finally putting paint to these German softskins. I want my infantry to be motorised, so need to get these off the bench!

I also want trucks. Trucks to use for goodness knows what. Convoy objectives, supply columns for tanks that carry low ammo. There is also the M20 command vehicle which looks pretty cool.

I have put flesh onto the Brits. I hope to get them painted as quick as I can now that I am painting again. I don't have the correct colours for my British armour to be honest. 

February Game Night

 Hi all,

Another month goes by with little movement on my miniature painting. I don't have "Bronze Green" so feel I can't make progress on my British armour. The US, Soviet and German armour can all be finished, I just can't be bothered. My British infantry are languishing unpainted, even though I have the colours for them. I feel like I have played games with people and need to figure out the next step for playing Battlegroup with another person again. I love this game. 

I also got distracted with painting of another kind. My lounge was in desperate need of a paint. So we spent a few evenings sorting that out...which took hobby time away.

Anyhow, I went to the February meet up of the game group and it was great. I messaged ahead to try and make sure I could play Cascadia and someone said they had it and would play it with me. I won, although kept forgetting to take photos of my setup. 

Another game was Quacks of Quedlinburg. It was a hilarious game of making potions, trying not to let them explode on me. I lost soundly, but it was really fun. A great theme, and it actually felt thematic.

January Game Night

 Game Night.

I met two nice guys in the same line of work. We played three games together. The first game was Nidavellir - a fantasy dwarf themed game where you are going around taverns hiring up mercenary dwarves. The theme was kind of cool but to be honest it had very little impact on the game. There was no big battle at the end, there was no impending doom that we were scrabbling to prepare against. Each round we just blind bid on dwarf cards in order to maximise scoring potential. I managed to win by about 30 points and was pretty chuffed as I feel like I haven't won a boardgame in quite a while. I was pleased with my victory. The guys said I was doing pretty well and felt I was going to run away with it, even though I was concerned. There is a mechanic where you can trade in one of your coins to get a higher value coin and thus guarantee yourself first pick of the three dwarves on offer. I was consistently lagging behind in this, but managed to get two good heroes who helped, and then I got three heroes who acted like the train stations on Monopoly where having more of them multiply their value significantly. 

In conclusion - fun game. Dwarf theme was cool, but not super relevant. I had a really good time with it though. Downside - setup was kind of a PITA, and the rules seemed really complex at first.

Two other games were played - my traditional game of Citadels where I lost again; then we played Forbidden Island. I had played Forbidden Desert years ago, so it was nice to revisit this subset of games. We ended up not finishing but were pretty much two turns away from winning by the skin of our teeth but the night was ending and everyone around us was packing away. 

Neither game made me immediately want to go out and buy it, unlike Cascadia from last month (still not purchased, but I keep coming back to it). Cascadia has remained in my head and I am doing the boardgame equivalent of the tattoo 5 year test with it. If you still want the tattoo after five years then get it - with boardgames I am giving it a few months. I don't really buy them and think I can probably get a copy over at UK Games Expo probably...

I didn't win the raffle, but was going to take the Citadel Age of Sigmar painting set if I had won.

The guy I played with last month won a second time in a row. That guy is lucky. 

Here is to February - that is in halfterm so I can see my leaving during a film night in order to get there. 

I had to park up the road it was so rammed.

Christmas Haul - The ground sloggers have arrived!

 I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the following purchases:

1x late war German infantry (new casts)

1x 1944 British infantry (new casts)

1x 1944 British infantry support weapons (new casts)

1x US infantry (new casts)

1x Soviet infantry (new casts)

a few Achilles TDs, GMC trucks, M20 car, Whites scout car, KV1s and a KV2. 

This was to fill a few holes in terms of vehicles, and having transport for command units etc. 

The quality and poses of all of the infantry are top notch. They really are gorgeous. Some flash, but not much. They are also easy to clip off from the sprues. Now, having begun the process of attaching British figures to bases for painting - I immediately regret this decision. I should have painted them on the strips and clipped them off for basing. Oh well. It has been a few years since I have really painted any H&R infantry en masse. 

I also had the following situation - the British infantry (and all other nations) are in strips of 5. The infantry pack came with 10 strips. There are no indentifiable Bren guns on these strips, whereas in the old US infantry packs there is definitely a BAR armed figure. I panicked! How was I going to properly equip my infantry sections? I have soviet infantry who are armed with generic looking small guns which I am happy to fudge into rifles. But in reality I want the Bren guns to be featured. Then I opened the support weapons pack and there are a few teams that I thought were sniper teams...but maybe the scope is actually a top feeding magazine? So I decided that these are my Bren teams and that will be that.

I also have one large mortar, a few 2" mortars, six PIAT teams, some men who look like they are throwing grenades? There is a strip of men lying down with binoculars - one of whom I have already enlisted as a sniper spotter. Flame throwers, mine sweepers, and a strip of figures holding long, thin explosives perhaps? Bangalores? I have honestly no idea what they are meant to be. 

I wish there were some command strip thrown in. I will remember this for my next order. As it stands I can make things work with infantry stands and hoping I can remember what stand is what when on the table.